President Trump held a meeting at the White House on Wednesday with his former Middle East advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the “day after” plans for the Gaza Strip.
A report from Axios said that Ron Dermer, a close advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived at the White House ahead of the meeting, suggesting that he also participated.
Details of the meeting are unclear, but US officials had said beforehand that the talks were “simply a policy meeting” and that the topics would include post-war Gaza and getting more aid into the territory.
Kusher, who served as an official advisor to Trump during the first Trump administration, was reportedly behind the president’s earlier calls for the US to take over the Gaza Strip. Trump has said repeatedly that his plan would involve the removal of the Palestinian population, and Netanyahu and other Israeli officials frequently cited those comments to push for their ultimate goal of the ethnic cleansing of the territory.
Last year, Kushner said that Gaza’s waterfront property could be “very valuable” and said Palestinians should be removed from the territory, at least temporarily.
“Gaza’s waterfront property — it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner said.
“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up … But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterward,” he added.
Blair has pushed similar ideas as he is the head of a non-profit that participated in a project involving Israeli businessmen to develop plans for a post-war Gaza that involve the building of a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk smart manufacturing zone,” according to a July report from the Financial Times. The plans, which were shared with the Trump administration, also include the removal of 500,000 Palestinians from the Strip.
The White House meeting came as Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza continues to rage and as famine has been officially declared in Gaza City and nearby towns. Israel is conducting an offensive aimed at conquering Gaza City, which involves forcibly displacing over 1 million Palestinian civilians. US officials claim that Trump wants the conflict to end soon, but he continues to provide military aid to Israel, which it relies on to sustain military operations.
